Simon and Jim discuss Christopher McQuarrie's third Mission: Impossible film, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, the first of a two-parter that will cap off this franchise (for now). They discuss the film's troublesome title (again), the reconfiguration of the IMF from an intelligence agency to a weird cult with echoes of Tom Cruise's own religion, how the film is in dialogue with more traditional political thrillers like those of Tom Clancy and Brian de Palma, the nebulousness of the AI antagonist and what it misses about human-computer interaction, the issues created by the film's flabby and repetitive script, and then their minds are broken upon discovering which derided English film director has an inexplicable knighthood.

Content warnings: the COVID-19 pandemic; verbal abuse and workplace harassment; cult leadership and the Church of Scientology; violent deaths including murder and assassination; nuclear weaponry; public transport disasters including a train crash.

Our theme song is Star - X - Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/4UGZV7LG

Simon and Jim return to The Xenopod for a special episode discussing the new Alien franchise TV series, ALIEN: EARTH created by Noah Hawley. They discuss how well the worldbuilding works, the production design, the creature design before ultimately descending into discussion of why the series as a whole doesn't work: pacing issues including the pacing issues with US prestige TV in general, themes that don't fit the Alien franchise, narrative threads that taper off unresolved, and the never-ending Peter Pan references.

The Impossipod will return later this month for an episode discussing MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE.

Content warnings: body horror; mutilation and violent death; biological experimentation; child slavery; transhumanism and biological augmentation; pregnancy; eyeball stuff.

Our theme song is Alien Remix by Leslie Wai available on SoundCloud: ⁠⁠https://soundcloud.com/lesliewai/alien-remix⁠

Simon and Jim discuss Christopher McQuarrie's second Mission: Impossible film, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT, a very highly-regarded entry in the franchise that frankly Simon and Jim are a bit meh about. They discuss how Henry Cavill (and his $3 million moustache) is a great addition to the film, the shift in Ethan's character towards mythologising messianic tropes, McQuarrie's obsession with continuity in the franchise, the franchise's continuing approach to femininity in action films, and the script's lazy misunderstanding of political anarchism.

Content warnings: nuclear explosions and mass death; violent deaths including murder and assassination; destruction of religious sites; cult leadership and the Church of Scientology; flying including parachuting and helicopter crashes.

Our theme song is Star - X - Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/RQWZD7BU